Fishing lures which glide in water away from a fisherman are known. However, all such gliding lures have been made of rigid, hard materials such as metal or hard plastic. No gliding lures made of soft, non-rigid materials are known.
Hard lures are designed to be continuously retrieved under a tight line so that a fish strike can be immediately felt. Hard lures are also designed to be used as top water lures so that strikes can be seen immediately. Hard lures, however, are much less effective in situations where a lure must be moved very slowly, or where a lure is used under a semi-slack line where strikes cannot be instantly detected.
The problem with the gliding lures disclosed to date is that they are hard lures. During a glide, when the fishing line must be slack, it is difficult to detect a strike on a gliding lure because the fishing line is not taut and not able to transmit the sensation of the strike back to the fisherman. Since most fish strike gliding lures on a glide, a fish must hold onto the gliding lure until the fisherman can tighten his line, feel the strike and set the hook. Because a gliding lure moves slowly on its glide, it is subject to close scrutiny by a fish. A fish would quickly spit out a hard gliding lure, yet would hold onto a soft lure until a fisherman tightened his line, felt the fish and set the hook.
The properties of soft materials, such as softness and flexibility in water, which produce advantages found in soft lures, make design and construction of soft gliding lures difficult. The chief characteristic of soft materials that must be overcome to produce soft gliding lures is deflection of the materials in water. Materials that are soft and deflect in water are less desirable than hard, rigid materials as materials for gliding lures. Therefore, unlike hard lures which are rigid and can be easily be shaped and weighted to produce a glide, soft lures, which greatly deflect and easily lose their shape, are difficult to balance with weights to produce a glide. Therefore, a complex set of problems must be overcome to produce gliding lures having fish catching advantages found in soft lures and yet possessing the capability to glide.